The Scars That Heal Us
by magfreak
Summary: From an anon prompt sent to me on tumblr: Tom is badly scarred and Sybil sees it for the first time on their wedding night. Canon through the end of series two.


_This one-shot is from an anonymous prompt I got on tumblr: "Tom is badly scarred and Sybil sees it for the first time on their wedding night."_

_I'd never written a canon wedding night scene/fic before this, and as there are a number of them out there that are beautiful and wonderfully written, I was feeling a bit intimidated. I'm not sure if this comes anywhere close to any of those, but I enjoyed writing it with the added element of Tom being badly scarred from the prompt. This is canon through season two. And as a disclaimer, I have no knowledge of scarring or how skin develops after severe burns in childhood. As ever, no offense intended._

_I hope you enjoy! _

* * *

The mass had been short in comparison to the ones they had attended over the course of their first month in Ireland. Sybil had worn the dress she had been presented in, a gift from Mary and Edith who, prior to traveling to Ireland, had found the old frock amongst the things Sybil had left behind and sent it to their dressmaker to shorten slightly, remove the train and simplify what, years later, was now a somewhat old fashioned design. Sybil had been touched the gesture from her sisters, who knew well Sybil would not buy a new dress for her wedding, and Sybil was tickled by the thought that a dress made for her introduction to the king of England would be what she wore when she became the wife of a socialist chauffeur turned journalist for the Irish Republican cause.

The celebration afterward had been small but lively and allowed the ardent-hearted Irish of the Branson clan and the stoically proud Crawley sisters to push their differences of nationality and class aside for a few short hours and love each other as family. The day had been everything both Tom and Sybil had hoped. For their honeymoon, they'd be going to Galway for several days and staying at a small beachside cottage belonging to one of Tom's cousins, who was going to be away in Cork for the week. But they wouldn't be traveling until the next morning. Their wedding night, they'd spend in their flat. It was small and they had to share a bathroom with their neighbor, Mrs. Flanagan, but it was theirs alone and represented the first time either of them could claim a living space as being their very own.

When they arrived after the wedding, having been dropped off by the driver Mary and Edith had hired for the duration of their visit, Tom opened the door and playfully scooped Sybil up and carried her in.

"Welcome home, Mrs. Branson," he set as he set her down just inside the door.

"Welcome home, Mr. Branson," Sybil replied looping her arms around his neck and pulling him in for a kiss that quickly grew in intensity.

They pulled away slightly, their foreheads still touching, and Sybil whispered, "The whole of the English language does not have the words to describe how happy I am right in this moment."

Tom pulled her in for another kiss. "The Irish language comes up a bit short as well," he said with a smile.

"Then I suppose we'll have to make up our own."

They stayed close as they took off their hats, coats and shoes, all of which were left in a heap on the armchair nearest to the entryway and just inside their small sitting room. After another series of kisses, Tom pulled Sybil into the kitchen, where, sitting on the small table in the center, there was a bottle of champagne and two glasses.

"What's this?" Sybil asked.

"A surprise," Tom said, picking up the sweaty bottle and unwrapping the foil on the cork. "I asked Kieran to leave just before we did and bring it over so that it would still be cold when we got here."

Sybil laughed as Tom sent the cork flying into the ceiling and splashed a bit of the fizzy drink onto the floor. He quickly grabbed the glasses and poured.

Sybil took hers with a bright smile and lifted her glass. "To us," she said simply.

"To us," he repeated.

They both drank it all in one go, and Tom poured them each a second glass. "I suppose it would be uncouth to suggest that we finish this in the bedroom," he said with a cheeky wink.

Sybil laughed in eager anticipation of what was to come. "It would be, in fact, which is precisely why we should." She took the bottle from his hands and headed out of the kitchen, looking over her shoulder as she passed the doorway. "Are you coming?"

Tom took a deep breath. This was it. The start of the life he'd always wanted.

In stolen moments over the course of the past month, he and Sybil had grown closer physically and pushed past boundaries they'd previously not dared go near, but this last manifestation of love had waited until this moment. And neither of them could wait another minute. They had loved each other from afar for too long. With unrelenting faith that had got them through years of war and uncertainty, husband and wife would finally become lovers.

As they stepped across the threshold into their bedroom Sybil saw that Tom had done some work on the room since she had last seen it a week before. There were now plain white curtains over the windows, a small armchair and table in the corner on which sat a porcelain vase with fresh flowers, an old wardrobe that Tom had brought in from his mother's house, and a new simple dark wood vanity for Sybil built by a furniture maker who had been Tom's friend growing up.

Sybil immediately walked over to it and ran her hand across the smooth finish. Turning back to him, she said, "Tom, it's so beautiful."

He smiled sheepishly, "I know it's nothing like what you likely had at Downton, but I thought it would make for a nice wedding present."

"I love it," she said quietly.

Setting the bottle of champagne down at her feet so as not to tarnish the wood of the vanity, Sybil sat down on the small bench and put down her glass. She looked at Tom through the reflection in the mirror.

"Will you help me with my hair, please?"

He smiled and walked over to stand behind her, setting his own glass down next to hers. As she watched him in the mirror, he carefully took down the pins holding up the thick plait of hair that had been twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck. Then, he unbraided the hair and did what he had longed to do for so many years—he ran his fingers through it. His eyes met Sybil's in the mirror and as she watched, he pulled the hair away and bent over to place a series of soft, light kisses on her neck. Sybil closed her eyes and sighed, leaning into his touch.

Eventually, she turned her head and their lips met. Awkwardly, but continuing to kiss, she stood and turned. He pulled her over to the bed, where they laid back, still enjoying their increasingly intoxicating kisses. They pulled away for a moment and just looked at each other.

"Thank you," she said in a whisper.

"For what?"

"For waiting."

"For this or for you?"

"For both. For everything."

"Thank you for choosing me."

Sybil gave him a small chaste kiss on the lips, then said, "Shall we give it a go, then?"

Whether it was her words or the twinkle in her eye when she said them, Tom fell into a fit of giggles and Sybil couldn't help laugh with him. They held each other in a tight embrace laughing at themselves and the joy and love that was radiating from them both. It was one of a handful of moments over the course of a long lifetime together when both wondered whether it would ever be possible to be happier than this.

"Let's do it," he said sitting up and pulling her with him.

Sybil stood up again, facing away from Tom, who exclaimed, "Oh, dear God!" at the sight of the dozens of tiny buttons running from the top of her dress down to the slope of her rump.

"Can I just tear it off?"

Sybil laughed. "If you must."

Tom stood and undid the first three buttons, then gleefully pulled the fabric apart sending many of the buttons scattering across the floor.

Sybil stepped out of the dress, picked it up and threw it across the room.

"I wish you could tear this off, too," she said, tugging on her corset, "but I'm afraid it won't go down without a fight."

Tom walked up to her and Sybil moved to turn again, but Tom put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her back to face him. Without a word and without ever taking his eyes off Sybil's, he wrapped his arms around her, found the strings of the corset and pulled on them gently. Then, he pushed his fingers into the sides and pulled it apart. She took a deep breath as the corset loosened around her, then lifted her arms up, signaling that she wanted him to lift it off. After, she stepped away for a moment, then bent down to take off her knickers and stockings. Once she did, all that was left covering her was a barely there slip through which he could easily see her naked form, the sight of which brought tears to his eyes.

Sybil smiled and brought her hands to his face. "I never feel so beautiful as when you look at me."

Tom wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her into another long kiss, lifting her off the ground and setting her down on the bed so that she was kneeling on the edge of it.

"I wish that what you will see were as lovely as what I see."

"It will be because it's you."

Slowly, Sybil pushed Tom's suit jacket off his shoulders and left it in a pile behind where he stood. Then, she unknotted his tie and set to unbuttoning his waistcoat.

"I'll spare the buttons," she said with a wink, "since you need suits for work, and we're both rubbish with a needle."

Tom laughed and leaned over to kiss and nibble on her ears and neck as she pushed off the waistcoat and braces and moved on to the buttons of his shirt. Sybil sighed and closed her eyes, but did not stop unbuttoning, knowing that stopping would just delay the thing they both wanted so much. Once she was done with the buttons, Tom straightened and watched her as she pushed the shirt off his shoulders. Then, looking into his eyes one more time as if to ask for permission, she lifted his undershirt up. He grabbed the edges and pulled it off the rest of the way.

As a war nurse, she'd seen plenty of scarring, much of it worse than this. But still, the sight of it, and the accompanying thought of what he had survived took her breath away. The scarring ran clear across his torso and around his left side, from under his arm to just above his hip bone. It was a mark of the life that his parents had left behind and a reminder to him to fight for the rights of those born with nothing, like he had been. Sybil had told Tom once, before either knew of what fate had in store for them, that when he spoke of politics, he spoke as if a fire had been lit inside him. He called her metaphor an apt one and told her of the night, when he was not yet ten, that the match was lit.

The fire had been started before the family was woken and brusquely pushed out of the house, and it burned quickly. The men didn't know how many children there were, which was how Tom was left behind. His father had to fight them off to run back in for him. For years, the feeling of the flames coming upon him in his small bed haunted Tom. So did the sound of his father calling out to him because he couldn't see past the smoke and, later, the image of his mother's face, tearless, as she pulled off what was left of his clothes to pour honey over his charred skin. The unsightly scar had grown with him, but Tom was taught by his father to see it as a mark of good fortune. God (in the form of an unscrupulous landlord) had taken their house, but not their lives. Tom had been burned badly, but in a manner that could be hidden from the world. So Tom had learned to bottle his feelings and channel them into a purpose.

_The fire will always burn inside you, son. Use what they cannot see against them._

Sybil wouldn't realize it for years, but when he told her the story, a part of her heart was lost to him for good.

And now she was seeing it, seeing _him _for the first time. She gently ran her hands over his torso then bent over to kiss him in the chest and side. The nurse in her marveled at the miracle of his survival, and the wife in her loved knowing that from this moment only she would ever see him like this. Sybil straightened up and kissed his lips as her deft fingers made quick work of his pants. Then, she pulled him onto the bed with her to finally consummate a love that had burned inside them for so long.

There was more scarring for her to see on his back and on the backs of his legs, but there would be plenty of time for that. There would be a lifetime of showing him, telling him, that scars are beautiful because they mean you've healed.


End file.
